


Classroom Raids

by dreamoverdrive



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-06 10:51:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4218945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamoverdrive/pseuds/dreamoverdrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Katara had gathered from being situated so close to his class was that he was ridiculously inept at controlling his students. She was certain that something very large and very heavy was being thrown around the room, or that they had at least decided to re-enact the French revolution. Not that Katara’s class was silent, but at least it didn’t sound like she was conducting the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, gunpowder and all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Katara wasn’t one to complain.

Especially when she had fallen upon much better circumstances than her colleagues. Many of them had classes with flickering light bulbs, awkward room layouts with strange seating arrangements, close proximity to the band building which meant thrilling renditions of the same spirit song over, and over, and over—

Katara was very lucky.

She had a nice spacious room with adequate cabinet space and a nice view of the quad. It was close enough to the teachers’ lounge that she could make a beeline for the coffee every morning before it was all gone, and far enough from the student bathrooms that the smell of passing period smokes didn’t creep under her door. The only thing that might be considered wrong with Katara’s room— and it was nothing wrong with the room itself— was its neighbor.

Katara hadn’t met the history teacher with the room next to hers. It was her first year at the school and she was still getting to know the rest of the staff. Not to mention that their prep periods were at complete opposite times of the day, and that she always arrived moments before the bell rang in the mornings while he left immediately after the bell rang in the afternoons. All she had seen of him was the back of a dark head of hair before his classroom door clicked shut.

What Katara had also gathered from being situated so close to his class was that he was ridiculously inept at controlling his students. At times she was certain that something very large and very heavy was being thrown around the room or that they had decided to re-enact the French revolution. Not that Katara’s class was silent, but at least it didn’t sound like she was conducting the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, gunpowder and all.

Her frustration had been progressively growing with each incident, along with her curiosity. She had nearly jumped out of her skin last week when a sudden boom sounded from directly on the other side of her wall, as if they had taken a battering ram to it in a sudden effort to merge the AP US and AP English classes once and for all. She had laughed nervously while her students chuckled and gritted out the rest of her lesson on ethos.

After that, Katara had complained. The principle had looked on with amusement as she tried to explain exactly how vigorous her neighbor’s class was and how sick she was of experiencing it secondhand through the thin wall. He’d waited for her to finish and then pasted on his administrator smile, which meant that nothing would be done and he was about to tell her so.

“Ms. Katara.” The amusement in his voice told her what he thought of her letting her students refer to her as Ms. Katara rather than her last name. “There’s nothing to be done. He always gets back very high AP scores, and you aren’t the first teacher to express your concerns. He’s been spoken with before and the problem has persisted. Surely you didn’t expect to get one of the best rooms your first year here?”

She felt her face heat in anger. Oh, so that’s what it was. Stick the new English teacher next to the maniac trying to bring the building down. “Right,” she said in a clipped voice.

“Besides, I thought the two of you would be getting along. You both have unconventional teaching methods and you both teach the same grade. I’m surprised you haven’t collaborated yet.”

Katara left the office in a huff, yanking her hair back into a bun before it could become the frizzy mess it always did when she was angry.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
The next day she asked her students about him.

She tried to keep it casual, lounging at her desk as they worked on mapping sentence structures. When there was a lull in the room, she made her move. “So who teaches in that loud classroom?”

The students’ heads shot up and Katara was immediately wary. They exchanged a few smirks and one girl said, “You haven’t met him yet, Ms. Katara?”

Katara narrowed her eyes. “No, I have not.”

“Never even seen him before?” At that giggles rippled across the room.

“No,” Katara said, clinging to the last bits of her patience.

“Well, his name is Mr. Zuko.”

Katara raised an eyebrow. “He lets you call him by his first name?”

“We thought you got the idea from him.”

Katara glared. “All my ideas are my own, thank you very much.” That must have been what the principal meant by similar unconventional teaching methods. Katara figured she’d have a easier time earning her students’ respect as a young teacher by giving them a sense of familiarity.

One boy piped up from the back, a wicked grin on his face. “He was asking about you last week, Ms. Katara.”

Katara frowned. She couldn’t imagine why he would have any complaints when any noise she made was most likely drowned out by his. “Is that so?”

All her students nodded, devious smiles playing at the corners of their lips and a glint in their eyes. Katara knew how to pick her battles, so she moved on before they could say anything else. Mischievous adolescents were known to be one of the most dangerous populations on the planet, and she wasn’t going to provoke them.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
It was the final straw.

The noise had started first period, and today it was obscenely loud. Shouts and cries sounded from the other room and every ten minutes they seemed to reach a crescendo. There would be unpredictable bangs on the wall and Katara couldn’t help but wonder how loud of a bang her throwing the other teacher’s body into the wall would produce.

She seethed at her desk through the first three periods of the day. Her students kept glancing up from their timed essays, looking longingly at the wall. Katara was not looking forward to reading half-assed essays, all because her neighbor decided to throw independence day mid-December.  
She lost it when there was a sudden prolonged and ragged screech that was unmistakably a cry of victory. Her students grinned at each other as the wordless bellow continued. Katara felt her pulse in her temples. She leapt from her desk.

This was it. She had planned on making no enemies as a fresh new teacher, planned on offending no one, but this was it. She wasn’t going to sit here and let barbaric war cries become the norm. She strode out of her classroom, an aura of vengeance crackling around her. Her students applauded as she passed them.  
She didn’t bother with knocking on his door. She wrenched the handle down and threw it open.

“What on earth could you possibly be—“

Her voice broke off short as she took in the scene before her.

He had to be the teacher. Her brain kept telling her this because he was the only one in a white button down and dark slacks. But that didn’t explain why he was standing on a desk with one leg braced on another desk a row over, poised to leap. His red tie was thrown backwards over his shoulder and he held a messily cut cardboard saber.

His eyes connected with hers, yellow and bright with excitement. They traveled over her and he seemed to realize who she was, or at least he guessed, and they quickly became mortified.

“Um, I wasn’t—“

He tried to retract the leg that was braced against the other desk. Katara now saw the desk was one of many arranged in a barricade protecting a group of students who also held cardboard sabers. He couldn’t move his leg away without his previous momentum so he finally stopped and stayed where he was balanced. He flashed her a shaky smile that was half sheepish and half horrified.

“We were just—“

Katara looked over the room and saw a group of students clustered behind him on desks with bright red dunce caps on their heads. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was leading a charge. In his own classroom.

“Oh, one of you help me down,” he snapped. A grinning student came forward and offered him an arm to hold on to as he stepped down from the desks. The room was silent as the students watched with eager glee, eyes flashing between the two teachers. There had been bets for months whether or not the notorious bachelor history teacher would have a crush on the beautiful new English teacher. Some students from Katara’s class stood outside, peering in through the glass on the door. Many pressed their cellphones against the glass to record it all.

Once he was safely situated with both feet on the floor, he came over to her with his face flushed bright red. Katara noticed that he had a a nice face, a very nice face indeed. He had sharp cheekbones and a strong, stubborn chin. There was a large red scar that covered one of his eyes, leaving the skin puckered and shiny. Despite the scar, (or maybe because of it, she mused) he was undeniably attractive. Katara shook herself out of her ridiculous train of thought and focused on what the poor man was saying.

“I’m really sorry about this. I was meaning to drop by sometime before but—“

“Katara,” she said extending her hand and cutting him off. “I’m Katara, the new English teacher.”

The absence of the Miss did not slip by the students and there was a rustle of excitement in the room.

He gave her a relieved smile as one of his hands unconsciously tried to flatten his messy hair. He grabbed her hand and shook it. “I’m Zuko, the AP US teacher.

“Well, Zuko,” Katara said looking around the classroom. “Care to explain?”

“Oh, er— this was a reenactment of the English raid on Washington D.C. during the war of 1812.” He gestured over to the cluster of students hiding behind the desks. “That’s the marine barracks.” The students let out bellows and some pounded their chests. His face grew red again and he shot them a glare. He pointed over at a cluster of over-turned desks that had bits of battered cardboard scattered around them. “That was the White House.”

Katara tried to stifle her small grin with her previous disapproval. “Right. Of course.” She cleared her throat. “Well, I uh, would appreciate it if you toned it down a little bit. We’re writing some timed essays.”

He nodded quickly. “Yes, of course, absolutely no problem.” He looked at his students. “No more yelling, and I mean it this time.”

Katara had to work even harder to keep the smile at bay. She settled with a stiff nod. “Thank you, Zuko.”

“My pleasure.”

The students let out some catcalls at the word pleasure and red flooded into his face and neck.

Katara gave him and the students a feeble wave and then strode out of the classroom. Her students that had been clustered outside the door scattered and fled back into her room. She sighed as she made her way back to her desk, trying to press the excitement out of her system. Whatever she had expected of him, it certainly wasn’t _that_.


	2. Chapter 2

Katara was not happy.

She hadn’t thought that there would be problem after yesterday. She had incredible self control and even throughout high school and college, she had been very sparing with her dates and had preferred to spend more time focusing on her course work. It was why she had graduated early, with honors, and single. She was still mildly reeling from the fact that she was now an adult with a shocking lack of relationship experience. And now that she had seen what the world had to offer…

She swore, throwing the hangers and blouses she held onto her bed. She _certainly_ was not spending more than five minutes picking out what to wear to work. She hadn’t spent so much time deliberating over clothes for a regular day since high school, and she wasn’t about to begin again just because she realized that her classroom was conveniently located next to who was most likely the hottest teacher in the whole damn district.

She closed her eyes tightly and thrust her hand down to fish around in the pile of clothes on her bed. She’d pick something at random just to spite herself. She’d show herself that she really couldn’t care less about her obnoxious neighbor. She flashed her eyes open when she chose what felt like pants and a shirt, only to find she’d somehow fished out the only orange pants she owned and a ratty blue button up that was left over from her undergraduate internship.

Katara sighed and resigned herself to another fifteen minutes of outfit sorting.

* * *

 

Katara walked through the front doors of the school just as the bell rang. She was given her nice little teacher space bubble as the rest of the student body shuffled along together in currents towards opposite ends of the campus. Every teacher was required to spend at least one hour on campus outside of class for office hours, and she spent hers (and often more) after the afternoon dismissal. She’d always been a night owl and she found she was much more capable of understanding what someone was saying to her after 7 am.

Something also told her that she’d be sure to keep her routine this way just in case coming in the mornings would mean bumping into—

“Hello, Ms. Katara!”

She started and coffee sloshed out of her travel mug onto her wrist. She found a small group of her students walking next to her with wide grins on their faces, as if she had just told them that their argumentative essays for that week weren’t going into the grade book.

“Hello,” she said cautiously, while wiping her hand on her pants. She didn’t know what they wanted, but by the mischief in their faces, it wasn’t going to be anything good for her.

“We heard what happened yesterday in third period.”

She tried to hide the fact that her shoulders were inching up to her ears out of what was either nervousness or irritation. “Did you hear about it, or did you see it on all of third period’s snapchats?”

There were grins and giggles over the fact that she, the elder in her twenties, knew what snapchat was. She decided that she would spend more time acting aware of technology so that her saying the name of an app wasn’t seen as a cute grown up attempt at being a young ‘un.

“Both. We were all so surprised, it was out of nowhere. We knew the noise irritated you but we never thought you would actually—“

“Do anything about it? Why not? It was ridiculous.”

Her students blinked at her and she had to hide a small smile behind her hand. They probably weren’t expecting her to talk about it so casually, or at all. That was good. Maybe they would think that she didn’t care about the whole thing and that nothing had come of it. Maybe if they thought it enough, she would start thinking it, too.

“So you had never met Mr. Zuko before?”

“No,” she said, putting on her best pokerface. Years of growing up with a tattling older brother had given her a first class pokerface, and she intended to use it for all it was worth.

“And you didn’t think anything when you saw him?”

She looked over at her students with her best elegantly arched eyebrow teacher look. “Was I supposed to?”

They stared at her for several moments, at a loss for ways to tease and prod. She was relieved to find that she had finally made it to her pod and that all of them seemed to have classes elsewhere. They left her side with quick “see you later, Ms. Katara”s and bemused looks. She walked through the path her students made to her door and unlocked it with a satisfied jangling of keys. Her first five minutes had gone well. If she just got through this day, then it would all blow over. She just had to act uninterested and everything would be back to the way it was.

She tried not to feel too disappointed.

She strode to her desk and was just laying her phone and tote bag on it when the bell rang. The effect was instantaneous.

It was as if a bomb had gone off next door. The moments before had been complete silence, but as soon as the last bell note faded, a collective and indistinct roar rose up. She jumped and stumbled in her wedges, gripping the edge of her desk chair to steady herself. She mentally swore that if she twisted her ankle today because she was surprised by his _insane_ class, she’d sue him and his nice red tie.

She looked up at her class and found thirty-three pairs of eager eyes trained on her. They watched her closely as she dusted off her blouse and pretended to be unconcerned while the roar continued. She could have sworn she could hear a lone, frantic hushing sound under all of it on the other side of the wall, but she decided it must be her imagination.

“Well, you all can turn in your synthesis essays to the box, now.”

A groan rose up from her class when they seemed to realized that not only was she not going to stomp out the way she had in third period, but that she still remembered assigning homework despite the previous day’s excitement. She allowed herself a smug little smile as they dumped their papers in her bin. Operation carry on as normal was proceeding well.

* * *

Operation carry on as normal was tanking.

Katara was many things. Intelligent, motivated, compassionate—

but she was evidently not as patient as she thought.

She thought the noise would die down. After all, pubescent vocal cords could only last so long. They’d get tired of whatever was causing the roar, but it must have been incredibly important for it to have gone on into _the forty-third minute of her class_. Who knows, maybe they had decided to re-elect George Washington. Or maybe they had decided to screech at Maryland on the map until it broke off to form Rhode Island the Second. Who really knew? She didn’t.

“Ms. Katara?”

“What,” she snapped, throwing her pen down on her desk.

“I, uh, just wanted to ask if this was an ok motif for the Grapes of Wrath essay?”

Katara looked up at her flinching student and guilt dropped heavily into her stomach. She couldn’t take this out on them, and they deserved so much better than this mess.

“I’m so, so sorry, Christine, tell me about it one more—“

She broke off when she heard a slow rhythm begin behind the wall. They had started banging in a slow, weighted rhythm that gained momentum as it went on. The sound resonated against her class wall and she wouldn’t have been surprised if dust had started to drift down from the ceiling.

_Thud thud boom. Thud thud boom._

She could not go over there again. She’d done it yesterday only because she hadn’t known the teacher was young and ridiculously handsome. Or that he would be standing on a desk with a cardboard saber. Now that she knew, she just couldn’t. What if she said something idiotic that the students would repeat for years and that they would tell their incoming freshman siblings? _Oh. My. God. You will not believe what your AP English teacher said to Mr. Zuko._

She just couldn’t.

She looked back up at her confused student with a forced grin. “It’s ok, just talk over—“

She didn’t finish her sentence because the students next door had started chanting along with the pounding. The sound was too muffled for her to make out the words, but it was too loud for her to physically bear.

She looked around the room at her students who were staring at her with pleading looks. They just wanted to finish their essays before the bell. She felt a pang of pity that gave way to a spark of fury. How dare he not control his class the literal day after she had come to directly complain. In fact, this was the loudest his class had been all month. Wrath began to bubble in her stomach and her students must have seen it in her face because they all grinned at her.

She stood from her desk and marched to the door for the second time in forty-eight hours to the sound of applause. She strode out into the hall and was proud to find that she didn’t hesitate for an instant before knocking on his door hard enough to rattle the glass pane it was inlaid with. The class fell silent on the other side of her knock and someone pushed apart the blinds hung to obstruct the view inside. A smug student looked out at her between the slats and Katara distantly wondered if her hair had started to crackle with rage yet.

The door swung open and Katara didn’t miss a beat. She walked in, nearly knocking the student over, and marched to where Mr. Zuko was sheepishly standing at his podium.

_“I thought I told you—“_

“You did!” His hands shot up in defense as she drew up in front of him. “You did, you’re completely right—“

“Then what is this,” she hissed, gesturing around her in a half circle. The students were sitting at their desks and looking perfectly well behaved, but her effect was achieved because he gulped and looked down guiltily. She hated the fact that her eyes lingered on his neck after his adams apple bobbed.

“I can explain.”

“Oh, I certainly hope you can.”

He sent a dirty look around at all his students who were spectating in absolute glee. “Look, let’s talk outside.”

Murmurs went through his class and he silenced them with a sharp look. “Quiet,” he barked. “I mean it this time. And no one will be pressing their cellphones against the glass unless they want to explain to their guardian why their sim card is missing.”

He led the way to the door in the now silent class. She blinked, and then followed suit. If he was capable of discipline, she wanted to know why his class had sounded like a war zone for so long. She tried to ignore the fact that he held the door open for her. Half of her still wanted to yell nine-year-old Sokka’s favorite threat at him: _Don’t make me madder or I’ll throw up on you!_

Then again, she was trying to avoid doing anything mortifying and memorable, and puking on him fell under both of those categories.

He led the way out into the pod and shut the door with a firm click behind him. When he turned to face her, he was slouched with embarrassment and relief, and his hand was tangled in his hair.

“Look, I have absolutely no idea what got into them. Nothing I said today would get them to calm down before you came in. They usually know when to be loud and when to be quiet—“ She arched her eyebrow at him and he smiled weakly. “Well, at least _quieter_. I have no idea what their issue is today, but I really will start taking phones if it makes you feel better.”

She tried to keep the fury in her stomach going but he was looking at her so earnestly and he was playing with the hem of his cuff—

“Alright,” she muttered, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I can’t believe I’m not even going to yell at you. I was so ready to whisper yell so that none of them heard.” He laughed and she found it was a pleasant raspy sound that made her smile. _Oh God._ “But you really do need to start controlling them. I can’t come marching over here every day.” 

She waited for him to respond and when he didn’t she looked back up at him. He seemed to jolt back to himself and began talking very quickly. “Right. Definitely. That would be very, er, improper. Not efficient at all.”

“Besides,” she said, enjoying how flustered he was becoming. “I think I’d break the door eventually.”

“Oh my god. “ He looked at the door and shook his head. “I sent Malcom to see who it was because it’s procedure, but I half expected you to break his nose.”

She laughed. “And you let him look?”

“Better him than me. I’m sure he gets much better insurance than we do.” 

She pressed her hand to her head. This was not good. Not good at all. Not only was he good looking, but he had a sense of humor? She was beginning to think that throwing up on him was the best way to go after all. “This is insane. You know, I spent three months imagining a way to take you out? I was going to have the wrestling team kidnap you so they would have to hire a new, boring, and sane teacher who didn’t set off land mines every day. Now we’re out here making teacher benefits jokes.”

“I meant to go in and apologize in September.” He scuffed his leather shoe on the floor and Katara found the casual way he was leaned up against the wall by his door reminded her strongly of college. She had to force herself to keep listening to what he was saying rather than get caught up in memories. “And one thing led to another, and I never really had the time. I was kind of scared, too. They said you were strict.”

“I am not strict!” 

He smiled. “Strict in comparison, maybe.”

She snorted, and then realized it was probably a very unattractive sound to make. Not that she cared. “So what were you doing in there? I was holding up pretty well until the pounding and chanting started. Were you summoning some deity?”

“Oh, that.” His gaze went down to the floor again.

“Go on, tell me. I did make the trip out here to hear it.”

His face was slowly turning red but he looked back up at her to say, “We were playing history jeopardy with test terms and dates.”

“And how does this translate into chanting and pounding?”

“Uh, they were chanting daily double.”

“Daily double,” she repeated slowly.

He ran his hand through his hair. “I really did try to get them to stop, but I really think they wanted you to come in again.”

“Devious little things.”

“I’m glad you’re so understanding.” He grinned. “You know that they need to have fun every once in awhile.”

She scowled at him and placed her hands on her hips. “I wouldn’t go that far. One more time and I’m definitely whisper yelling, and I’m not sure you want to be on the other end of that.”

He straightened and adjusted his tie. She noticed it was blue today. “Yes, of course. I really am sorry. I know how hard it is to get them ready for an AP test, and I’ll try to keep it down for the rest of the year.”

“I’ll be holding you to that.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Her stomach flipped. What did he mean by that? She was debating whether or not to ask him when he started speaking in a fast rush.

“You know, uh, we really could collaborate sometime. I don’t know which books you have assigned but maybe we could try and go in the same time period sometime or—“

“Ms. Katara?”

Katara spun to look at her classroom door that had been cracked open. A few of her students were looking out and flicking their eyes with rapid interest between her and Mr. Zuko. She hated that her cheeks started to redden. A grown woman, and here she was blushing because another teacher offered to do a project with her.

“What is it, then?”

They glanced between each other and a few broke out sly grins. For the life of her, Katara couldn’t remember when the young generation had started acting so smug.

“We were going to go see if you were alright in there. It’s been awhile.”

Katara chose to ignore the suggestive note at the end of the sentence for the moment, but decided to make their next rhetoric essay on a Russian literature excerpt.

“Right,” she said, turning back to Mr. Zuko. He didn’t seem to have as much luck with her in not blushing, because the red was even beginning to creep down into his neck by this point. It was such a high school thing for a grown man to do, but she was horrified to realize she found it endearing, and even worse, _attractive._ “I have to get back to my class, but I trust we won’t be disturbed?”

He coughed and straightened his tie again. “Of course! We’ll be much better about the noise.” He glanced between her and her students and offered her an awkward half wave. “I’ll be seeing you. I mean, not because of the noise, but just around—“

 She felt a grin curling at the edges of her lips when she waved back. “Yes, Zuko.” She should have berated herself for using his first name when she was determined to maintain professional distance, but the deeper shade of red that he turned before the door shut was definitely worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I was not expecting so much positive feedback! I'm actually the worst at continuing multi-chaptered works, but this was such an incredible surprise. As long as people seem to enjoy it, I'll keep working on it. Thank you again! This was so overwhelming and fantastic.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a cute little piece to write with the end of the school year. I wouldn't mind continuing it if people like it!


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